The Hunt
by Tabby Kitten
Summary: Slight AU. Shmi survived but Vader doesn't know. Vader finds his daughter on Alderaan, 18 months after his turn to dark side. He immediately launches a manhunt for Obi-Wan Kenobi to exact his revenge. What he doesn't know is the company Obi-Wan keeps on Tatooine, and how they could change his life forever. *no promises for regular updates*
1. The Discovery

**Alderaan **

Darth Vader's ship glided down through Alderaan's thick atmosphere toward the landing pad outside the Organa's palace. The Sith Lord was here on official business to discuss many things, not the least of which was Bail Organa's reluctance when it came to dealing with the empire. He strode into the palace flanked by two stormtroopers, who held blasters to scare off any latent rebel scum that might be lurking around.

"Bail Organa will see you now, my Lord." A young servant opened the door to his office.

Inside, Organa was bouncing a chubby toddler on his knees. At the sight of Vader, he jerked in surprise and quickly passed the toddler to a nanny. "Take Leia to her room." In an undertone he added, "make sure she does not leave it."

Vader picked up on the fear radiating from Organa's force signature. Not unusual, given his frightening appearance and position of power. But there was an undercurrent of fear specifically concerning the child's safety. Vader didn't understand. Perhaps Organa didn't want the child to be near a tall, wheezing cyborg. "Your daughter, I presume." Vader began.

"Yes, Lord Vader." Said Organa quickly. "Now what was it you wished to speak with me about?"

"I have experienced some reluctance from you in our dealings, Organa. Do you not support the empire?"

"I do sir, I do!"

"If you give me one more excuse for why you do not yet have a military base on this planet . . ."

"As I told you before, Lord Vader, the recent snowstorm has made construction difficult."

"And as I have told you, Alderaan is of great strategic importance to the empire. You have many buildings on this planet. They seem to have been built despite the weather conditions. You have two months to finish the military base, after that there will be consequences. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Good. I will be inspecting the construction site soon." Vader stood and left the room, his cloak billowing behind him.

In the hallway he found the child, seemingly having escaped from her nursery. Rather then going back to her father's office, though, she followed Vader down the hall. Vader sighed heavily. "Return to your nursery, young one." She giggled and took a step closer. Vader tried again, this time using a mind trick. "You will return to your nursery." Still nothing. In fact, the child had grabbed his cloak and was now chewing on it! Was she force-sensitive? Seized by some impulse, Vader reached out and picked her up.

"Hi!" The child squeaked as she was lifted towards his face. "Hi!" She reached out for his mask.

Vader was stunned. The few children he'd come in contact with usually ran screaming at the sight of him, yet this one was unbothered by the suit or the mask or the loud breathing.

Organa, hearing the noise, came out of his office. "I'm so sorry, Lord Vader." He made to take the child. "Leia, come to Daddy."

Vader felt the Force rise up in him and he yanked the child out of Organa's reach. "Hold off, Organa. This child is force-sensitive! What do you mean by keeping her existence concealed like this?" Vader had wanted force-sensitives to be trained by the empire.

"Lord Vader, I insist, give me the child!"

Vader held off, looking into the little girl's eyes. Doing so felt like being stabbed in the soul, for she was roughly the age his own child could have been, had it lived. She looked back into the sockets of his mask. Their eyes aligned, and Vader felt something deeper align too, something in their souls seemed to align too.

"How did you come by this child?" Vader snarled, reaching out to choke Organa.

"My wife and I . . . adopted her . . . war orphan." Organa sputtered.

"Who authorized this?!

"Obi-Wan . . . I failed him . . ."

Vader squeezed harder and Organa's lifeless body dropped to the floor. He stormed back to his ship with the child safely under his arm. Obi-Wan. Of course it had been Obi-Wan's half-ran out of the palace, back to his ship.

"My Lord, who . . ." Admiral Piett trailed off and Vader lunged for the door of the ship.

"It is none of your concern." Vader barked. "Take us back to Coruscant, now!"

"But the site for the new base, my lord . . ."

"We are leaving. Those are my orders."

On the way back to Coruscant, Vader put Leia down on the floor of the ship and observed her. She would be about a year and a half old by now, old enough to run around and speak a few words. As she scrambled up on a seat and tried to reach for the ship's controls, he quickly realized that she was also old enough to get herself into trouble.

"No, Leia. No no. Come to Father." He quickly pulled her back. As she tried to put the end of a blaster in her mouth, Vader realized with horror that he had no idea what went into raising a child. She would certainly need a bedroom, some clothes, and some toys. His quarters on Coruscant would have to be baby proofed. Weapons would need to be locked up. Did he need a nanny? Vader shook himself. Of course he would need a nanny. He had missions to go on and work to do, none of which would be appropriate for a child.

Leia made a little gurgling sound. Vader looked down and realized she was chewing on his cape again. Were babies still teething at this age?

"Piett! Speed up! I don't care who you have to shoot down, just go!" The sooner they could get back to Coruscant, the sooner he could get Leia situated and the sooner he could begin the hunt for Kenobi.

**Tatooine**

"Luke! Luke no!" Shmi Skywalker set down the stack of plates she was carrying and raced across the dining room, but she was too late: her grandson Luke had upended his bowl of porridge and splattered it everywhere, though mostly on himself. "second time this week, Luke!"

Luke giggled with delight and smacked his hands against the tray of his high-chair, splattering more porridge. `

"Luke, Luke. What are we going to do with you?" Shmi picked him up and took him to his bedroom to change him into a clean set of clothes. By the time Luke had been cleaned up, Owen and Beru had cleaned up the rest of the mess in the kitchen and had turned on the holonet. Shmi set Luke down and let him toddle around while she joined Owen and Beru to watch the news.

"The empire has placed a bounty of ten thousand credits on this man's head." A reporter was speaking. "Obi-Wan Kenobi, last seen on Mustafar eighteen months ago, is armed and extremely dangerous. He must be brought in alive."

Shmi frowned. "What does the empire want with Ben?"

Owen shrugged. "Most likely to kill him. We should go and warn him if he doesn't know already." Owen thought Obi-Wan was a weirdo, but even he didn't want the man to be taken by the empire.

Shmi watched the screen in silence. It didn't surprise her that Obi-Wan was a wanted man, not really, but this was sudden. It was as if something had reminded the empire of the man's existence. "I'll take the speeder and go first thing tomorrow."

"Are you sure?" asked Beru. "You of all people know how dangerous it can be out there. . ." They all knew she was referring to Shmi's kidnapping and subsequent coma episode several years ago. She'd been on the brink of death when Anakin found her, and had fallen unconscious soon after. Anakin had not bothered to check her vital signs, which had led to him wrapping up the body and bringing it back to the farm. Fortunately Owen and Beru noticed she was still breathing not long after Anakin left.

"I'll have to. You and Owen can't be spared from the farm labor." Her coma episode had left her too weak, mentally and physically, to do heavy farm labor. "I can't let the empire have Ben." The empire had taken her son and transformed him into a monster. They weren't about to take a good family friend too.

Luke tripped and fell against the holonet projector, knocking it over and breaking the connection. "That's it. Time for bed." Shmi picked the toddler up and carried him to his room. "Tomorrow you and I are gonna visit Ben Kenobi, ok?" Luke giggle and clutched his stuffed bantha in his small fist.


	2. Swapping Information

**Tatooine **

Before either of Tatooine's suns were fully up, Shmi loaded Luke into the speeder and set off toward Ben Kenobi's house. As the purple sky faded to pink, she kept one had on the controls and one hand trained on her blaster. She needn't have worried though. The desert was still and seemed to be waiting with bated breath.

Obi-Wan was meditating outside his hut, under the shade of an overhang. He was nearly hidden there as was his preference, and it took Shmi an entire trip around the hut to find him. "Obi-Wan!"

"Shh! Lower your voice." Obi-Wan opened his eyes. "Hello, Shmi. Hello Luke. What brings you here?"

"Can we go inside? I have urgent matters to discuss with you."

Obi-Wan straightened up and led them in. "What's happened? Are you all right? Luke?"

"No, no. We're all fine. It's you I was worried about."

"Me?"

Shmi sat down and told him everything they'd seen on the holonet: the galaxy-wide manhunt, the bounty, the stipulation that Obi-Wan needed to brought in alive.

"Frankly, I was wondering when Vader was going to get around to it." Seeing Shmi's face, he went on. "I cut off his arms and legs and left him on a lava planet. I stand against everything he now stands for. It was only a matter of time before he would set out looking for me. He wants to kill me himself."

"How safe are you here?" Shmi asked.

"I don't know how long it will take for Vader to think of Tatooine, or if he would ever set foot here again. Force knows he spent hours complaining to me about Tatooine. Hours and hours."

Shmi fell silent for a moment. "Is there anything we can do for you?"

"No. Protect yourselves, and protect Luke. It would be far, far worse for him to fall into the empire's hands. Speaking of Luke," Obi-Wan crossed into his tiny sitting room and pulled a box out from beneath a loose floorboard. "This is Anakin's lightsaber." He pressed it into her hand. "Give it to Luke to defend himself when he's old enough. I will train him when the time comes if I am able."

"And if you're not?"

Obi-Wan shrugged. "If I'm dead, I will be able to come as a force ghost. If I'm still alive but under duress . . . hmm. Try calling on my old master, Qui-gon. He may be able to give Luke some training, albeit as a ghost. But if Luke is anything like his parents, he'll probably has the skill to train himself."

Shmi nodded and tucked the lightsaber into her belt. She handled it carefully. The fact that she now clutched one of Anakin's most important possessions was not lost on her.

"One more thing." said Obi-Wan. "Please, try to keep calling me Old Ben. Not even Ben Kenobi anymore, it's too risky."

"You're not that old." Shmi laughed. "But yes. I have to remember that."

Luke toddled up to Obi-Wan and shrieked, "Ben!" a little too loudly.

Obi-Wan laughed and scooped him up. "Luke gets it." Luke giggled and wrapped his hands around Obi-Wan's face, accidentally poking the Jedi Master in the eye. "But please, try not to worry about me."

Shmi nodded. "I know you can look after yourself. It's just that I would especially hate it if the empire got to you."

"It may be quite a while before they think to come here. Living in the outer rim does have its benefits."

**Coruscant**

_This is fine, this is fine. You're still a good person. Ok, so you're a Sith Lord. You're not a good person and you're okay with that._ _This is fine._Vader opened his eyes. "Leia! Come back here!" He was only a day in and felt like he was losing his mind. "Where are you? You've got to go to your appointment!"_Great. Now he was speaking to her like a colleague. _

"No!" Leia shrieked. "No no no!" She knew that word alright.

"Yes." Said Vader, trying to sound firm but not too angry as he chased her down the hall. "You're going to go to the med center for an appointment, ok?" Vader was pretty sure that babies had to go to doctors pretty regularly, and it wouldn't hurt to get Leia checked out to make sure everything was ok. He scooped Leia up and took her into his shuttle, to her appointment at a private med center in the city.

"She's healthy, average size for her age, and appears to be hitting all her developmental milestones." said the medical droid, who was trying to avoid Leia's prying fingers.

"Excellent." Said Vader. "Leia, no, we don't poke and prod droids." He sighed with relief. At least Leia had been well-cared-for on Alderaan.

"Are there any other tests you would like me to run, my lord?"

"Yes, actually. I want you to run a DNA test and a midichlorian count." The DNA test would merely confirm what he already knew, and the midichlorian test would find just how strongly the force was with her.

"Of course, my lord." The med droid began to prepare the equipment. "I'll have to ask you to hold her still. We will need a blood sample, and it will hurt a little bit."

Vader nodded and wrapped his hands around Leia, sending a few calming waves through the force. The med droid inserted pricked the tip of Leia's finger and collected a few drops of blood. Leia screamed and Vader fought the urge to throttle the droid for making his daughter cry.

"All done." The droid moved away and put the blood sample into a large machine. "my lord, this machine will scan the sample and can give you any type of genetic information you choose, including ancestry, carrier status, mutations—"

"I told you, I only want parentage and midichlorian count." Carrier status and genetic predisposition could wait.

"Of course, my lord. The machine will take a few minutes to scan single-nucleotide polymorphisms against our database—"

"I don't care how your machine works, I just need results." Vader stood back as the machine whirred and tried to soothe Leia, who had stopped crying and was now staring at her stubby fingers with a look of bewilderment. Vader had to fight the urge to smile as he watched the wheels turn in her brain.

Presently the machine dinged and printed out a sheet of results. The droid picked them up and began reading them out. "Maternal match: Padme Amidala Naberrie, deceased. Paternal match: Anakin Skywalker, also deceased."

Vader took the results from the droid and scanned them. Leia's midichlorian count was high, though not as high as his. She would definitely be strong in the force.

"Do you have any other questions or concerns for me, my lord?' The droid asked.

"Yes, actually. You will destroy the results of this test as well as the blood sample, leaving no record that this test was performed. You will do it and do it thoroughly or I will wipe your memory and sell you for scrap metal, do I make myself clear?"

The droid nodded and scrambled toward the machine to expunge the data. While the machine clonked and whirred, Vader took out his shopping list, which contained everything he thought would need for Leia, from a crib to clothes to a nanny droid.

"Ba?" Leia was reaching for his list.

"Yes, young one. Shopping. For you."


	3. The Next Steps

**Coruscant**

"She has disobeyed you. You need to discipline her to begin teaching her the difference between right and wrong." The nanny droid's metallic voice echoed through Vader's apartment.

For the tenth time that day Vader resisted the urge to bash the stupid droid over the head. Who was she to try to tell him what right and wrong were? But he complied. "Leia, no. We do not run away from Daddy when he's trying to dress you."

Leia, wearing nothing but a diaper, looked up at him. Vader had no idea if she understood or not. She likely understood more than what she could express though her very limited vocabulary.

"Good." said the nanny droid. "You have been firm, but not angry."

Vader picked Leia up and wrestled her into her clothes. She squirmed a little, but allowed him to pull a shirt over her head, put pants on her, and even shoes. He passed her to the droid. "Take her into the dining room and give her breakfast."

"Dada!" She reached for him.

"Daddy will be along in a minute, dear." He'd wondered if he should expect Leia to call him Father, but it didn't feel right. Daddy was a name weak fools used, but it was all right if no one ever knew that a toddler ran after him shrieking, "Daddy!" Besides, Padme would never have asked her children to address their parents by such formal names, and he wanted to do right by her.

Vader let his eyes wander over the Coruscant skyline in the direction of the old Jedi temple. He vowed that Leia would never know their ways. She would be trained in the force for sure, but not like that. She would not shy away from her own power, nor would she lock away her emotions until they destroyed her from the inside. No, she would become her own entity. After she grew into her power, perhaps they could take down Palpatine and she could rule the galaxy, with her father behind her every step of the way.

"Lord Vader." The nanny droid was standing behind him, and she didn't sound happy. "You have put Leia's shoes on the wrong feet."

"What?" Vader hadn't been paying attention.

"You have put Leia's shoes on the wrong feet." Said the droid again. "I suggest you go and fix them before she trips and falls."

Vader sighed and went back to the dining room. Be behind her every step of the way, provided he got her started off on the right foot in the right shoe.

**Tatooine **

Once Luke had been put down for a nap, Shmi took out the lightsaber and took a closer look at it. It smooth hilt was cool and heavy in her hand. She carefully pointed it at empty space and activated it, listening to the little noises it made as it turned in the air. This was the weapon that had protected Anakin for years, but it was also the thing that paved the way for his horrible atrocities. Nothing could dampen the memory of Obi-Wan sitting at her kitchen table and telling her every last horrible detail of Anakin's fall. The world had collapsed around her shoulders, and the only solid things were Luke's tiny warm body in her arms and Obi-Wan's haggard voice.

Obi-Wan had wanted to take the blame for what had happened. He kept saying that he'd failed Anakin. Shmi wanted to tell Obi-Wan to go easy on himself, but she didn't know the full story and knew very little of grown-up Anakin. No matter what, Anakin was an adult and had ultimately been responsible for his own choices. It was an uncomfortable fact. If Vader came to Tatooine now, she didn't know if she should slap him, try to reason with him, or fire a blaster in his face. Each option felt so right and yet so horrible.

Shmi shuddered and tucked the lightsaber away on a high shelf, behind several boxes. Obi-Wan hadn't said what age he wanted to start training Luke, and Shmi felt that it could wait for a while. There was no sense in giving a child one of the most dangerous weapons in the galaxy, and besides, Luke's practical education would have to come first.


End file.
